


And Titus

by mresundance



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Growing Old, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 13:08:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6196282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mresundance/pseuds/mresundance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke and Titus remember Lexa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Titus

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place directly after 3x08.
> 
> At the time I wrote this, 3x09 hadn't aired.

Together, they remember Lexa. After the rush of the Conclave and the ceremonial burning of Lexa’s body, they take some of her ashes up the green slopes of Mount Hawk, where the skies are considered bluest, and the rivers run like cool tears. They plant her on a hill overlooking a meadow. Deer graze there, and little puddles reflect everything down to the finest strand of a spider’s web.

“This seems wrong. Leaving a part of her like this,” Titus says, as if he didn’t grouse about it the entire journey up.

“It’s a tradition among my people,” Clarke says.

They are silent the rest of their time on the mountain.

* * *

The next year, long after Pike is finally trotted out by Octavia and executed in view of the 12 Clans and the new Commander, after long months of political unrest for both Skaikru and the Coalition as leadership and power shifted and swayed, Clarke rides into Polis and finds Titus.

They have a few drinks in his room in perfect silence. Neither is sure who talks first -- they are only sure that they begin to talk about the thing they share between them.

Titus talks about raising Lexa and watching her grow from a curious child into the brilliant, steel-strong commander. Clarke talks about having found her equal, about Lexa’s strength but also her softness, her tenderness. They talk about how much she did in her life. And how much she could have done. They talk about how much they miss her.

“Does it ever go away, Titus? The missing?”

“No,” he answers, but with a kind of affection he hasn’t shown Clarke before.

* * *

The years unspool. They both devote themselves to their people, and therefore don’t find partners or raise families of their own. But every once and awhile, when they feel the keen, cold hunger in their bellies, Clarke visits Titus in Polis, where they drink and talk.

For many years they simply remember between them, conjuring visions of Lexa: who she was, who she might have been. How she smiled and laughed. How much she loved to ride, and how calm she could be in the midst of a battle. What her favorite song was, and how she kissed. Clarke and Titus climb Mount Hawk more than a few times. Near where they buried Lexa’s ashes, they camp overnight. Titus tells Clarke stories passed down through his people, and she tells him stories about her people.

It’s on one of these mountain excursions that Clarke tells Titus a story about Bellamy getting caught by a swarm of bees. It’s a ridiculous story, really, but Clarke is still surprised when she hears Titus snort at the end.

“Did you just -- _laugh_ \-- Titus?”

“I laugh,” he replies.

And then they both laugh at that.

* * *

By the time Titus begins making trips to Arkadia, they talk less about Lexa. Instead they talk about their people: what new projects their leaders pursue, who is in power and who is out. They talk about the changes of the seasons from year to year, how the willows in the creeks were redder last spring, or how the rabbits had their kits earlier this year; they talk about the changes in their lives, and their bodies.

Titus complains about the cold for the very first time, but Clarke pretends she didn’t hear, and doesn’t offer him a blanket. At least, not that visit.

Clarke squawks about finding a gray hair and Titus just laughs -- a sound she has heard many times now.

“Even the great Wanheda must grow old,” he says. “You’ve seen it in the plants and animals, Clarke. All that is young must grow old and then die.”

He doesn’t say it to sound wise, or because he wants to chide Clarke. He says it because he wants to humble her. She’s just Clarke. And she will grow old and then die. She is nothing in the great chain of being.  

She knows this is what he intended. When she brings their drinks, she raises a glass to time and all its ravages, and they drink together.

* * *

And time, she does ravage. First, Titus twists his ankle and can never walk without pain. Then his eyes begin to milk over.

Clarke moves to Polis to care for Titus. She ignores his grumbling objections and instead massages his feet. They are always so cold.

During these years in Polis, she remembers what it was like when she was there with Lexa. She and Titus talk again of that time, of Lexa, and what she means to them now, especially since she’s been dead many years.

“She was my whole heart,” Titus says one night.

“She wasn’t mine,” Clarke says.

When Titus looks at her with shock and then anger, she adds: “I never gave her my whole heart. Not even when . . . I didn’t have time to give her my whole heart.”

“There is never enough time, Wanheda.”

And they both drink to that.

* * *

Not long after Clarke moves to Polis, she finds herself waking up in the night sweating. Her body burns and then freezes, oscillating between the two in minutes. Her bleeding becomes erratic, and then stops. Her people have nothing for menopause but soybeans, so she goes to a Grounder healer to see if they have anything to help. She finds a striking woman with graying mahogany hair and great, soft blue eyes.

The healer is Trika, and she is a widow.

Clarke falls in love, and gives her whole heart.

She tells Titus as much and he grunts, but he’s smiling while he does so.

* * *

Titus dies not long after. He passes in his sleep, from what Clarke suspects is an aneurysm. He is buried with great honors, commemorating his long years of service. Clarke takes some of his ashes and packs them away in a tin.

On the way up Mount Hawk, Trika asks her to tell the story again.

“Tell me,” she says, taking Clarke’s hand in her own. “Tell me about Lexa.”

“And Titus,” Clarke adds.

“And Titus.”


End file.
